Mirror
by Shiragami
Summary: When you look into the mirror who do you see? Depending on the light and the perspective, one's reflection might be distorted. Even a mirror can't tell it all. If you put on a happy face, a mirror can easily be cheated. But no matter how long Kei stares at himself, no matter what face he makes, he'll never deserve someone like Sho.
1. Prelude

Author's comment:

This is my very first fanfiction, honestly i'm a little scared about posting it (but does anyone even read Moon Child fanfiction anymore?). English is not my first language, so it's probably going to be speckled with grammatical errors, please bare over with me or at tell me how to correct it.

This fanfiction will reach a mature rating in later chapters, but for now it's pretty safe to read.

It's mostly Kei focused, but will also circle around Sho's thoughts and feelings.

It is a KeixSho fic, no matter what the story might lead you to believe in later chapters. I'm planning to keep every chapter about this length, but i can't promise anything. Since i have school i might not update that often, but if anyone actually reads it i promise i wont leave it.

Some things may vary from the original story, it has to, as this is a love story, haha. But small details too.

**Prelude**

"Aren't you afraid?" the man asked the small boy standing in front of him. It would be so easy to tear into that inviting little neck. In one fast move he could take this boy's life. He was so hungry, even after the meal he had just had, all his senses were screaming at him to take this boy, and it would be so delicious. The vampire licked his lips, taking in the boy's essence that was everywhere in the air.

So hungry, he was waiting for the boy to run away in fear. Droplets of blood running down his chin, dripping into his now dead victims face. He was sure that it must have been a terrifying sight, and yet, the boy didn't move. Kei looked up at him and was taken aback when he saw the boy was smiling.

Kei could see his reflection in the boy's strikingly blue eyes, as he looked down at him. The boys smile widened into a big grin. Kei forgot about his meal and in that moment promised to himself, that he would never snuff out the light he saw behind those azure pearls.

Kei felt a flick of pain in his cheeks, and that was when he noticed that he too was smiling.

The boy reached out for him. Slowly and carefully Kei took the small appendage in his own soiled hands and got to his feet.

"What's your name mister?" the boy asked him.

In reality Kei had been with the three boys for a couple of days now, but this was the first time that he had talked to one of them.

Three days ago, the small boy had dragged him out of the sun. This hadn't been the first time Kei had tried to kill himself, and it wasn't that anything special had happened three days ago to make him want to kill himself. It was just a general feeling. Kei was alone in the world, his last friend and maker Luka had met the sun a couple of years ago, and Kei had since avoided any social contact.

The only time he talked was when he told the unfortunate people who had fallen victim to him, to shut up. And that wasn't even that often. When he had been with Luka, they had killed whenever they wanted to, gorging on blood, carelessly wandering together in the night, but Luka had left him. Now Kei was all by himself, alone with his self loathing and the conscience that he had been suppressing with constant inflows of blood.

"It's Kei"

"My name is Sho, and this is Toshi and Shinji" the boy pointed at the two other children.

"Shinji is my brother, Toshi is not… but he's just like a brother"

The other small boy, Toshi, was grinning at Kei tending to the older boy, Shinji's wound.

"I can help you with that", Kei said to the injured boy, but the boy pulled his leg to him and looked angrily at Kei.

"Don't touch me!", "how can I know you're not just going to drink my blood too?"

"I won-

"Come on Shinji, Kei helped us; he's the reason why we're not all dead now!"

The boy with the blue eyes, Sho, was defending him. Why?

"Yeah and he's very much the reason why _that_ guy is dead now" Shinji bobbed his head at the still bleeding man.

"That man was evil", Sho said.

"You don't know that he's not evil too. For all I know he might as well be some kind of demon".

Sho turned towards Kei and asked: "Are you a demon Kei?" Not with a frightened look, but with a look of honest curiousity.

"I'm not a demon", Kei replied, "I'm a vampire".

After the adrenalin had left Shinji's body, and he realized how much pain he was actually in, he let Kei have a look at the wound anyway.

"It must be painful", Kei stated to the boy in an attempt to connect with him.

"This is nothing, I'm the oldest here so I'm used to this kind of stuff", Shinji replied proudly and moved closer, meeting Kei's eyes "I've been taking care of these two, and if you hurt them I'll fucking kill you".

Kei pretended not to notice the last comment, and tightened the piece of cloth around Shinji's leg.

"Kei how come you always sleep in the day time?" Sho asked, as he sat down next to Kei.

"I'm always tired in the day time"

"But why?"

Kei gave the boy a crooked smile: "I guess it's more practical, when I can't go out in the day time"

"Was that why you were burning that day we met?"

"Yes"

The boy nodded to himself: "I tried to stay up tonight, but I'm just so tired"

"You don't have to stay up, Sho"

"But isn't it boring not to have anyone to talk to?"

Kei shrugged and looked up at the ceiling. He could feel Sho's big eyes on him, studying him.

"I'd be bored", Sho added after a while.

"I'm used to it now"

"How old are you Kei?"

"Next to you I'm very old"

"I'm eight years old", "my birthday is in June", Sho told and stretched his arms. He yawned and scratched his eyes, trying to itch out the tiredness.

"Go to sleep Sho"

"I won't sleep, I'll just close my eyes a little" he replied stubbornly, but was soon fast asleep.

Sho's small head was leaning against Kei's shoulder. He could hear his little intakes of breath and smell the sweet scent coming from his breath every time he exhaled. At this close range, Kei could also hear the small heart beat. It was beating a fast rhythm, and even though Kei had only awakened a couple of hours ago, he too soon fell into the first peaceful sleep he had had in years.

The next morning he woke up to find the small boy curled up against him, clutching a piece of his white shirt in his hand. The boy's eyeballs were slowly moving from side to side under his eyelids and soon Sho woke up.

It was still early in the morning and the boy moved closer to Kei, trying to warm himself on Kei's body heat. Kei was about to pull the boy closer, when he was interrupted by an annoyed voice.

"What are you doing?" Shinji hissed, "Are you maybe some kind of child molester?" Shinji moved closer and narrowed his eyes at Kei.

"It's so cold Shinji" Sho said dreamily, still not completely in this world.

Shinji continued to squint at Kei and said: "well get up now, I got food"

And with that Sho opened his sapphire eyes wide.

"Great, I'm starving!"

Kei got up and walked in to the room next to the one Sho and him had been sleeping in, and found that Shinji really had cooked for them. It was nothing impressive, white rice and soup made with unknown ingredients, but it smelled nice nonetheless. It was better than anything Kei could have made, that he was sure of, and the boy was only 13.

"Is there daikon in the soup?" Sho asked.

"I was the one who stole it!" Toshi exclaimed happily.

_'So that was how these boys made a living'_, Kei thought to himself.

Sho almost had his face in the soup before Shinji poured some for him in a small, slightly fractured bowl. It was an old dark maroon bowl with a red interior. Kei thought, that the boys must have taken it because it looked like something out of the old Japan.

The boys must have been taken to Mallepa only a few years before, when the economy of Japan reached its absolute low point.

Many people had come to Mallepa. Parents sent their kids there on big, dirty ships, hoping that they by doing that, at least had given their children a fighting chance in life. Unfortunately, Mallepa wasn't what the poor people of Japan had been told. Gang related shootings, prostitution and air so polluted that even Kei sometimes felt a sting in his lungs from breathing it in, all of this was a part of the everyday here. And that was also why Kei had made it his permanent home after Luka had died. In the city of Mallepa a few deaths would easily go by unnoticed.

"Here you go, Kei!" Sho handed him two bowls, one with rice and another one with the soup. "We don't have enough chopsticks… but you can borrow mine", "I eat really fast and you can have them when I'm done!"

Before Kei could thank the boy who had already begun eating, Shinji interrupted.

"Does he even eat food?"

Sho's eyes widened, just realizing that Kei might not actually eat the same things as they did.

"Sometimes", Kei replied.

"You know, we can't really afford to waste food on you"

"Come on Shinji… I like Kei" said Toshi and smiled wide, placing his hand on Kei's shoulder.

"I like Kei too!" Sho yelled and got up to put his hand on Kei's other shoulder.

Shinji sent Kei a look that clearly showed that he didn't trust him. It would probably take a long time to gain the oldest child's trust, if he ever would.

After Sho had finished eating the rice and gulped down his soup, he handed the dirty chopsticks over to Kei, despite Shinji's protest.

"It's good", Kei told as he took the first sip at the brown liquid.

"Of course, I've been the one taking care of them for years, I know how to cook", Shinji snorted.

"Yeah Shinji is like our mother!"

"Shut up Toshi!", Shinji yelled and jumped to his feet, spilling some of his soup on his trousers, causing Sho and Toshi to burst out laughing.

Kei smiled at the two boys holding their stomach as they continued to laugh at Shinji's misfortune.

It was obvious that Shinji cared very much about his two younger brothers.

"Kei can you teach me how to shoot a gun?"

It was a cloudy day and Kei had been sitting at the window, feeling the slight sting from the sun that he knew was hiding behind those thin clouds. It had been four years since he had first met Sho and his brothers; Sho was now 12 years old.

"What?" Kei said dully, not comprehending what Sho had asked.

"Teach me how to shoot a gun" he repeated.

"What, why?" Kei asked dumbfounded.

Sho looked down, embarrassed about admitting the truth.

"I want to help taking care of everyone", "I'm old enough now".

It was true that Sho had grown so much in the past four years, this last year he had reached Kei's shoulders and was still growing steadily.

"I'm not going to teach you how to shoot a gun"

"But why not!", Sho whined.

"Because you don't need that ability"

"I hate to admit it, but I have to agree with Kei", "why would you need to learn how to shoot when we've already got an invincible monster on our side?" Shinji yelled from the other room.

Since Kei had joined the trio, he had been acting as their protector, taking care of any threat to the three boys. Were it the police or the people they stole from.

"Stop calling Kei that!" Sho yelled back.

"But it's true, I can protect you all, Sho", "you don't need to put yourself out there".

"But what if you get hurt? What would you do then?"

Shinji snorted loudly, but Sho ignored it and pouted at Kei.

"You know, I can't die from normal wounds"

"So what, I still want to help!", "and what about on sunny days, you can't do anything then!"

Kei was defeated by Sho's logic, but still refused to teach Sho something that could end up putting him in more danger than he would be if he never knew anything about it.

Sho moved closer. Placing his hands on each of Kei's cheeks, he forced Kei to look down into his big pleading eyes. Those eyes, so full of innocence and pure kindness, Kei learned he could not say no to.

Three months after Kei had started giving Sho lessons in how to handle weapons, the inventible accident happened. It wasn't serious and Sho had been doing surprisingly well with the guns. It appeared that he had a talent for them, and one day he would surely outmatch Kei.

But that day Sho had been a little too careless, or he had maybe gotten a little too sure of his own abilities. They were practicing knives, which Kei thought was important, as you shouldn't always rely on guns. Guns run out of bullets, and then you would be defenseless if you didn't know how to handle a knife or use your body.

Kei was holding on to Sho from behind, grapping Sho's neck tightly as if he was going to break it. Sho had been supposed to quickly pull the knife and point it at Kei, but his hand had slipped and he dropped the knife. The knife had fallen straight down, leaving a long cut on Sho's thigh.

"Fuck!" Sho yelled and grabbed his leg. "Kei, I think I hurt myself".

Kei was aware of that, he could smell the blood.

Kei's mind was turning blurry. He became very aware of his canines poking into his gums. The hunger he had been suppressing was surfacing with double the power because of Sho's sweet scent. Kei raised his hand, covering his mouth and nose trying not to think anything.

"Kei… I think I need your help", Sho whispered and sat down pulling up his trousers.

Kei could now see the blood running down Sho's leg like morbid raindrops.

"What the fuck are you standing there looking for you idiot!", Shinji had appeared in the room and was rushing for Sho's aid.

"Do something!" he yelled at Kei who was still standing still, not daring to even move a muscle, as he didn't know what he would do if he moved closer. It had been so long since he had last fed and he was so insanely hungry.

"God damn it!" he heard Shinji yell. Shinji ripped a strip of his shirt and band it tightly around Sho's bloody thigh.

"It's ok Sho", Shinji smiled warmly at his little brother and wiped away the tears that were running down Sho's cheeks. "But I'm such an idiot" Sho sobbed.

Shinji pulled Sho closer and ran his fingers through his hair in a soothing manner.

"Don't worry about it Sho, accidents like that happen"

Kei was slowly returning to his senses as the smell of blood was disappearing from the air. When he was confident enough to move, he looked down at the two boys.

"And what's with you?" Shinji asked, suddenly looking up at Kei as if he had just now realized that Kei too was present. "You look like a starved madman", and as he said that, Shinji's eyes widened in sudden realization.

"It was the blood right?", "you couldn't control yourself, you were thinking about hurting Sho". Shinji reached for the bloodied knife and the ground and pointed it at Kei: "don't come any closer".

"I would never hurt Sho on purpose"

Shinji got to his feet and raised the knife to Kei's face, "Get out", he said, "GET OUT!"

And with that Kei turned around and left the abandoned building they had been living in for the past 4 years, ignoring Sho as he was calling for him to come back.

Shinji had been right after all, he had thought about hurting Sho, even if he didn't mean to have those thoughts he couldn't help it. He was what he was, and it was obvious that it wasn't going to change no matter how long he tried to ignore his urges. Kei was a cursed man, a monster.

"KEEEEI!", "KEEEEEI!"

_'Sho?' _

Within Kei's dream he could see Sho running around in the darkness, limping slightly, and calling his name.

For the past two days Kei had been hiding in an old ramshackle hut on the other side of the park in front of the abandoned building. He was weak from having been hit by small rays of passing sunlight the whole day, but he didn't mind, the pain was well deserved. He had thought about just stepping out in the light, making an end to it all, but something was stopping him from going through with it.

"Kei, I finally found you!"

_'Sho?'_, Kei formed Sho's name with his lips, calling for him silently.

"I thought you had left forever since you didn't come back", "are you sad about what Shinji said? You know he's an idiot!" Sho sat down with his legs under him beside Kei's limp body.

"I know you would never hurt me"

"… I thought about hurting you"

"I know that too", "but I also know that you wouldn't do it in reality"

"How do you know that?"

"Just do, now come!" Sho pulled Kei to his feet and together they walked out in the night.

Three years later, after Sho's 16th birthday party Sho was looking at himself in the mirror in the bathroom.

Since Shinji had turned 20, and they had collected enough money to buy an apartment, they had moved out of the abandoned building. Shinji had firmly refused to let Kei into his apartment, and was conflicted when Sho had told him, that if Kei wasn't going to live there, then he wasn't going to live there.

It was only after Sho had cried and promised that he would call Shinji at least once a week that Shinji had let Sho go.

Kei knew that he didn't deserve it, but he was happy that he wasn't going to be alone again. Shortly after, Kei too had bought an apartment only 20 minutes away from Shinji's.

They had packed the few things they owned and said goodbye for now to Shinji and Toshi, where after they had taken a taxi to the apartment.

The apartment hadn't been used by anyone for years and a thick layer of dust gave the illusion that everything was grey. After a long day of cleaning they had pulled the covers off two red leather sofas.

"Wow, I've never owned this kind of stuff before", "Kei, can we get a TV?" Sho jumped a little from excitement by all the new things.

"Sure", Kei said and Sho's smile widened even more.

It hadn't taken long for Kei and Sho to get comfortable in their new apartment, and Sho was calling Shinji every week, delivering his reports on his well being as he had promised he would do. A year later Sho was standing in the bathroom, looking at his reflection.

He hadn't even noticed Kei approach him from behind, and didn't see him for the first five minutes.

Sho felt his face as he just now realized that he had aged. He had in reality never expected to make it to this age. But he was here, making a living, and it was not a bad living either. They now had both a TV and a car. Sure it was an old car, but it could drive, and it was painted Sho's favourite colour, red. Now Sho just needed to take his driver's license, Kei didn't have one either but he was still a decent driver.

_'Kei?' _It felt as if Kei had been there forever, it had been 8 years since he had come into Sho's life. He had been the only adult to ever be a steady presence in Sho's life. And he had truly been steady, Sho thought. Kei hadn't aged a day since he first met him. He was the way he had always been, the only change was maybe that he had begun to smile a little more. Especially when they were sitting in the living room watching TV, Sho had noticed that Kei always had a warm smile on his face, but strangely enough, Kei never seemed to remember what they had been watching when Sho wanted to discuss it afterwards.

Sho jumped a little when Kei put his hand on his shoulder.

"Didn't hear you come in", he said.

"Sorry", Kei whispered trying not to break the thoughtful atmosphere in the room "what were you doing?"

"I was just thinking…" Sho said, starting to space out again.

"About what?"

"I was wondering if I was taller than you now!"

"Oh…", Kei said looking a slightly conflicted.

Sho pushed Kei in front of him and truly enough, Sho was now taller than Kei by at least 5 centimeters.

"I hadn't even noticed"

"Me neither, really, I first now notice how tiny you are Kei", said Sho.

"Tiny…"

"Yeah, it's crazy!" Sho laughed.

"Ok, but you don't have to laugh…" Kei was looking away from the mirror, trying not to look too offended.

"I'm not laughing at you Kei, I'm just amazed that I actually managed to become an adult" Sho said heartedly and pulled at Kei's chin so that he was looking into the mirror again.

"You practically raised me, well you and Shinji, aren't you proud?", "You and Shinji were always like an old bickering couple"

"No we weren't"

"Ha ha, yes you definitely were, I'm surprised you never actually tried to kill each other".

Kei couldn't help but laugh a little too.

When Sho had fallen asleep that evening, Kei had gone to Sho's room and sat down next to the sleeping youth.

Softly he caressed the boy's cheek, careful not to wake him from his slumber.

"Don't age so fast, Sho"


	2. Chapter One

Author's note:

Ok, forget it i'm going to screw up the movie plot completely, but hey it's fanfiction.

Also, with this chapter I will probably have to move it up to an M ranting just to be sure.

I wasn't expecting it to be so fast, but yeah, there will already be some adult related stuff in this chapter, mostly violence but also a little sexually related.. eh stuff.

Enjoy

**Chapter One**

"What are you doing?" Kei asked walking around the chair Sho was sitting in to get a clear view of his face. Sho didn't answer and continued mumbling the same speech over and over to himself.

Kei thought it was very strange for Sho, who recently had been spending 12 out of 24 hours in front of the screen, to not take the temptation of turning on the TV, when he was sitting so close to it. Instead, he was sitting with his back towards it, doing what appeared to be talking to himself.

"I'm practicing", Sho said annoyed at being interrupted and quickly continued his chant.

Kei bowed down so he was looking directly into Sho's eyes: "Is it because we're going to visit Son and Yi-Che today?"

"What, no!", "Why would you think that?" Sho said and blushed furiously.

"You're so easy to read, Sho", Kei closed his eyes and sighed "you like her, don't you?".

"No I don't, we almost just met", Sho protested.

"Then what _were_ you practicing?"

Sho quickly looked away, avoiding the older man's gaze as he tried to think of something to say. Why he couldn't just tell Kei that it was true, he was in love with Yi-Che he couldn't say, but for some reason he felt extremely embarrassed about it. Sho usually didn't have any trouble talking to his older friend, they shared anything or rather Sho shared everything with Kei. Kei was usually a bit more withholding when Sho tried to make him talk. He had known Kei for 10 years, more than half his life, and yet in reality he still didn't know very much about the vampire.

This was not something Sho worried about too much though, he was content with the friendship they shared, and was sure that Kei would come forward if he wanted to.

Sho was sure that Kei _was_ hiding something or maybe that he was trying to suppress some of the things that he didn't tell him. If that was the truth, then Sho didn't want to force him to talk. Sho himself also had some things he didn't like to talk about. But right now, Kei seemed utterly curious and it was very unlikely that he would give up fishing when he was in one of those moods.

"Ok", Sho admitted, "maybe-I-like-her-a-little-bit", he said so quickly that the sentence melted into one long word.

"That's what I thought", Kei said and patted Sho's shoulders.

Sho went back to practicing what he was going to say to Yi-Che tonight when he met her, he had thought of a couple of jokes and stories in case it got awkward. Kei sat there and watched Sho's concentrated expression until he decided to go clean the bathroom.

In reality the bathroom was maybe the cleanest room in the whole apartment, as it was the only place that Kei didn't allow Sho to bring food, but it was the only place that Kei could be alone.

He looked at himself in the mirror for a while. He pulled at his short blonde hair, trying out various styles.

He tried straightening it so that it appeared a little longer, pulled it behind his ears and smiled at himself.

"Maybe I should grow it long again?"he thought out loud, looking at his smiling face from different angles. After a couple of minutes Kei was starting to feel a little bit stupid, and ended up combing it back with water as he usually did where after he covered the mirror in a thick layer of soap.

Kei tried not to think about their later meeting with Son and Yi-Che, instead he focused on getting the mirror as clean as possible. He did a good job of cleaning the mirror and keeping his mind blank, but every time he blinked and the world turned black for a split second, he saw a picture of two people embracing. He couldn't help but feel a small rush of jealousy going through his body.

Why he was feeling jealous he was not sure though, was the one he was jealous of Sho or Yi-Che?

On one side he knew that Yi-Che, the mute sister of Son, had a good eye for him, he could see it in the way she seemed to be suppressing a smile every time she looked at him. Stealing her from Sho wouldn't be difficult, but he would of course never do that.

Or was it something else? Was it possible that the one he was jealous of wasn't Sho but Yi-Che for taking away his closest friend? Was he jealous of Yi-Che for taking some of Sho's attention? For the past decade Sho had had his full focus on Kei, Kei had been the one Sho would go to if he was sad or happy, Kei had been Sho's whole world, but since the night they met Son, new people had suddenly entered their lives. Kei knew he should be happy for Sho, but the thought of being alone again, no, the thought of Sho leaving him was tearing at Kei's heart and he felt guilty about it. Kei's only wish was after all, for Sho to live a full and happy life.

When Kei's reflection reappeared in the mirror after 10 minutes of scrubbing, he decided that it still wasn't clean enough, reapplied a new layer of soap and continued scrubbing vigorously.

"Kei what are you doing in there? I want to get ready before we go!"

It was Sho, Kei had completely lost count of time as he had continued to wash and reapply soap on the mirror that didn't seem to get quite clean enough no matter how many times or how hard he scrubbed it.

Kei unlocked the door and apologized without looking Sho in the eyes. Before he could leave Sho grabbed his arm.

"Are you alright, Kei?"

"Why?" Kei asked in a made up voice.

Sho let go of his arm. "Well, you've been in the bathroom for 40 minutes now and I didn't even hear the shower go off"

"I was washing the mirror", Kei replied.

Sho looked over at the mirror that was now so clean that it reflected so much light that it almost hurt to look at it.

"Yes I can see that!" Sho moved closer to the mirror and started to undo his braids.

"You definitely cleaned this mirror, but why? It was already clean".

"No it wasn't, I could see lots of stains"

Sho raised his eyebrows but gave up on questioning the vampire any further.

"Well, I'll be using it now then", he said and closed the door.

Kei went to his room and changed in to a fresh set of clothes, instead of the tight red top that he liked to wear, he changed into a cream coloured loose shirt that he hadn't worn in ages and a pair of equally loose trousers. Most of Kei's clothes were loose on him, now more than ever, as he had lost a lot of weight from not feeding.

He glanced quickly at his reflection in the small mirror on his nightstand, but decided that he had had enough of mirrors for the day. Instead he unlocked a secret drawer behind the nightstand and withdrew a couple of photographs.

One of them, very old, was of him and Luka. He quickly threw it on the bed, as he searched for the photo he wanted to see. Most of the pictures were ones Kei had taken of Sho, Shinji and Toshi on various holidays, and after going through at least 30 Christmas photos he found the one he was looking for. It was a photo of Sho and himself sitting outside on a cloudy, but warm, day. Sho, who was about 16 years old in the picture, had his arm around Kei and smiled brightly at the camera. Kei had his hands in his lap and was looking up at Sho with a slight blush. Kei couldn't remember who had taken the picture, but when he thought about it, it had to be Shinji, as Kei could see Toshi sit with his back towards the camera in the background. Kei wondered how Sho had convinced Shinji to take this picture, since Shinji always had been openly uncomfortable every time Kei "put his dirty hands on his little brother", as he called it. Even if the one who was putting his hands on anything in this picture was Sho, Kei was sure that Shinji hadn't been happy about it.

Kei never thought badly of Shinji for it, though. In reality he had probably always been the smartest out of the three. To fear creatures like Kei and feel disgusted by them was only natural.

When Kei could hear the bathroom door unlock he quickly put the photographs back in the drawer and locked it again.

"Are you ready to go?" Sho asked from the other side of the door.

Kei threw his bag over his shoulder and went out in the hall where Sho was standing and picking at his hair.

Sho had spent the last 20 minutes trying to make his hair just right, it was in the usual braids, but it was obvious that he had done them very carefully.

"You know I could have helped you with that", Kei said and pointed towards Sho's hair.

"I know, but you just seemed like you wanted to be alone", Sho said and tied his shoelaces.

Kei just now realized what Sho was wearing. Tight leather pants and a just as tight black shirt. Around his neck he wore several necklaces.

"Kei, are you sure you're ok?"

Kei hadn't even noticed that Sho had moved and now stood very close, looking down at him with a worried expression. Kei continued to stare into Sho's chest and didn't move before Sho had put his hands on each side of Kei's face forcing him to look at him. "Do you want to stay home?" he said with honest concern in his voice.

Sho's face was so close that their noses were almost touching. Kei could smell Sho's breath, the same sweet scent as when he was a boy. Kei blushed a little at the proximity and lightly pushed Sho away.

"No I'm fine"

"ok…", Sho said after studying the small man in front of him apprehensively, "but I'm driving".

"You're most definitely not!", Kei said.

They arrived at Son and Yi-Che's apartment in the Taiwanese district of Mallepa at 21:00. Sho had convinced Kei to stand outside and wait the last five minutes to not be too early.

"Welcome!" Son said happily as he opened the door. Toshi had already arrived and waved at Kei to come over and help carry in the beer.

Yi-Che was sitting in the chair and smiling shyly at the two arriving. Kei gave her a quick nod and went over to help support Toshi before he lost the heavy packs of beer.

He heard Sho greet her in a high pitched voice.

"Toshi don't worry, I can carry in the last couple of packs", Kei said and went out in the kitchen.

Sho stumbled a little when he moved over to sit next to Yi-Che.

"I b-brought a gift", he stuttered, "… to say thanks for inviting us here t-tonight!" And with that Sho pulled out a small package from his bag, just as Kei came back from the kitchen. Kei wondered when Sho had had the time to buy that. Even though Kei repeatedly had told Sho not to design his days after Kei's sleeping pattern, he usually didn't listen and stayed up all night. To buy it Sho must have gone out during the day time.

"I brought the last pair of six packs", Kei said irritably and put the beers down on the table in front of Sho and Yi-Che with a little more force than he meant to, making Yi-Che jump and Sho look up at him with a confused expression.

"… Thanks Kei", he said carefully and stared at Kei's face for a few more moments before he turned his attention back to Yi-Che.

"I'm sorry about that Yi-Che, I think Kei is a little tired", Kei heard Sho say as he turned around to sit in the sofa next to Son in the other end of the room.

Yi-Che nodded and poured a glass of beer for Sho.

"Thank you", he said.

Yi-Che smiled.

"It's ok… you can open the present now if you want", Sho said nervously bobbing his head at the forgotten present in Yi-Che's lap.

Yi-Che inhaled quickly embarrassed about forgetting the kind present so quickly and neatly opened it in front of Sho. It was a necklace, a replica of one of Sho's own that he had bought a few years back, silver with a small elegant lock at the end.

Yi-Che's eyes widened as she smiled and turned around so Sho could put it on her. She admired it in her hands and whispered so quietly that the only people in the room who would be able to hear it were Sho, because he was so close, and Kei because of his vampire hearing.

"_Thank you_"

Sho's face turned bright red and he burst out in nervous laughs.

"I'm glad you like it!"

Kei clenched his fists.

"Hey, Sho! If that is really a thank-you present, then where is mine?", "You know, I live here too!" Son yelled jokingly. Everyone in the room started to laugh, except for Kei who quickly took a sip at the beer to hide his expression.

For Kei the party went by slowly, Toshi turned on the music and Yi-Che went into the kitchen with Sho to prepare some nightly snacks for everyone.

"Can Yi-Che cook?" Kei asked Son.

"What, yes she's excellent!", "You'll love it!"

"Well Sho couldn't cook if his life depended on it, he won't be of much help".

"Ah, I guess he went with her for other reasons", Son said smiling crookedly at Kei.

_'I guess he did'_, Kei thought.

"I think he likes her", Son continued despite Kei's silence.

"You don't have a problem with that?", Kei asked.

"No of course not, I was actually a little scared that she would never find anyone"

"And why is that?"

"You know, she hasn't been herself since the incident"

"I see", Kei said.

They had already been told about the incident that had left Yi-Che mute. A while back she was raped by a couple of mafia thugs and left for dead before she had been found by her brother Son. Since then she hadn't talked but was now, thanks to everyone, slowly regaining her ability of speech.

"I think it's partly thanks to you and Sho that she's getting better now", Son said and patted Kei on the back roughly.

"So thanks"

"… You're welcome", Kei said and smiled back at Son. Kei slowly moved his head towards Yi-Che and Sho who had reappeared from the kitchen a few moments before with something that looked like fried octopus. They were now sitting in the other end of the room again.

When Kei's eyes met Yi-Che's he found that she had been looking his way. She quickly looked down and started to fumble with the stitching of her dress. Kei moved his eyes over to Sho and suddenly felt a little bad for Sho as he was hopelessly trying to entertain Yi-Che who was clearly not listening.

"What about you Kei found any…." But Kei didn't hear the rest of Son's questions as he excused himself for a smoke outside. When Kei left, Sho didn't notice it, but Toshi had and followed the vampire outside.

"Something is troubling you", Toshi stated as he sat down next to Kei.

"Don't worry yourself about it", Kei replied trying to smile at Toshi.

"Yes I will, I won't pretend to know you as well as Sho, but I do care and therefore I would like to trouble myself with it"

Kei looked into Toshi eyes, they were warm and sincere, and Kei knew that he could trust Toshi but was still too scared to open his heart. And he wasn't even sure what he was really feeling.

"Thank you Toshi, but it's really nothing"

Toshi lightly squished Kei's shoulder and looked up.

"It's beautiful tonight isn't it?"

"What is?" Kei asked trying to find the source of the beauty.

"Everything. The moon, the stars, even the light from the billboards is kind of cozy in the night time, don't you think?"

Kei looked around but couldn't seem to find the beauty that Toshi was seeing.

"I guess"

"Let's go back inside", he said and reached out for Kei to help him get up. Kei grabbed onto Toshi's big hand and went back inside.

Inside Sho and Yi-Che were laughing at something Sho had said, and Son was sitting in the sofa surrounded by empty beer bottles.

"Finally, I was getting bored with those two!" said Son and opened a beer for Toshi and Kei.

Kei had never, not even in his human years, been fond of beer, but anything that could help sooth his wandering mind was good.

Kei finished his second beer and was starting to feel slightly tipsy, not used to drinking more than one can of beer at a time. Suddenly he felt a sharp stab of pain in his side. It was Son who had elbowed him to look over at Sho and Yi-Che who too were both slightly flushed from drinking and sitting very close. Yi-Che had her hand on Sho's chest and was slowly moving it up around his neck, pulling his face closer, until the space between them was closed in a kiss.

Kei coughed on the beer and dropped the bottle, spilling its contents all over himself. He quickly got up and went past Yi-Che and Sho who were too busy to notice and ran out in to the night once more. Kei ran a couple of blocks until he collapsed on the sidewalk. He slowly and shakily moved a hand up to his face and found that he was crying. And that was when he understood.

_'Go back Kei, what are you crying for? You're being selfish. How could you even think that Sho would give up his life in the sun to stay with a monster like you?'_ A voice in Kei's mind was telling him what he already knew was the truth and yet he couldn't help it.

"Sho, I'm sorry, but I think I'm in love with you", Kei said to the night and broke out in an audible cry. In the back of his mind he could hear the voice snicker.

A few moments later Kei heard the sound of someone approaching.

_'Sho?'_

"Don't come any nearer", he said.

"Kei it's me"

"Toshi"

"Yes it's me Toshi", "I thought I saw you leave", Toshi was still coming closer.

"Please go", Kei said his voice hoarse trying to hold back tears.

Toshi didn't listen and sat down next to Kei.

"I think I understand now", said Toshi.

"What?" Kei said.

"You're in love"

"I'm not interested in Yi-Che!" Kei was starting to raise his voice.

"No, not her", "You're in love with Sho"

Kei stared wide eyed at Toshi.

"It makes sense", Toshi stated after a while.

"No it doesn't!" Kei yelled.

"Please calm down Kei", Toshi shushed at him trying to get the vampire to tone it down. Kei wasn't calming down though and continued to yell at Toshi: "Didn't I tell you not to come near me? You know what I am and I'm insanely hungry right now!" Kei spat at him, but instead of moving away Toshi pulled Kei into a warm hug, stroking the small man's hair.

"It's alright"

"No it isn't, it's anything but alright!" Kei struggled to get out of Toshi's embrace but gave up when he realized the man wasn't letting go. Toshi started to move his hand in circles on Kei's back and he slowly calmed down, silently crying into Toshi's shoulder. When the last tear had been shed and Kei's eyes were red and bloodshot he slowly pushed Toshi away.

"I'm sorry", he said, "I don't usually cry this much".

"I guess when you buckle it up, it only comes out much more violently when it does!" Toshi said and smiled at Kei who sniffled a little and turned around.

"Aren't you coming back to the party?"

"No I think I'm going for a little walk", Kei said and crossed the street.

"And Toshi", Kei said turning around, "don't tell Sho anything, I trust you".

Toshi nodded and waved at Kei who smiled back at the man.

"D-don't!" the boy screeched, horror painted in his face as Kei smiled wickedly. The boy suddenly regained the use of his legs and began to run, but he was no match for Kei's vampire speed. In a split second Kei was in front of the boy, who fell to the ground breaking the skin on the inside of his hands. The smell of blood was the small push it took for Kei to completely lose himself to the hunger.

Kei kneeled and came face to face with the boy whose eyes were wide in fear. The boy seemed to have given up trying to run, and instead tried to appeal to Kei's conscience.

"I-I'm a good boy, I get good grades, I always help my mum" he screamed, "I promise I won't do it again sir! Please!"

It was too bad that Kei didn't have a conscience at that moment.

Kei blotted his fangs and tore into the boy's femoral artery. The boy screamed and Kei covered the boy's mouth. The blood spattered all over Kei's face, as he was not used to drinking from this vein. He didn't know what had gotten into him. It was so wrong and thereby so much more delicious.

Kei lapped the blood in him greedily, drinking till the last drop of blood was gone from the boy's body and he lay dead on the cold, dirty ground.

Kei's stomach was full for the first time in weeks. Having come to his senses he hid the boy's body in an abandoned building, not unalike the one he had lived in with Shinji, Toshi and Sho, where after he returned home.

The car was at the apartment, meaning that Sho had made it home by himself. Kei was careful when he opened the door, not wanting to be caught covered in the blood of a child. Before going to his room Kei walked by Sho's and slowly opened the door to peek inside. Sho was lying in his underpants uncovered by the thin sheet that was now on the ground. Kei smiled remembering how much Sho used to move in his sleep as a child.

_'I guess he still does that'_, Kei thought.

Quietly Kei made it to his own room and pulled off the dirty clothes, not bothering to take a shower. Kei looked under his bed for the small key to the drawer behind his nightstand, unlocked the drawer and reached for the camera.

Kei returned to Sho's room and managed to snap a couple of photographs without waking up the sleeping young man.

Kei could feel his fingers twitch at the pale skin of Sho's chest, illuminated by the moonlight shining through the small window.

Slowly Kei went back to his room and reached for the arousal that had appeared in his pants. He felt guilty at dirtying Sho's pure image, but couldn't help giving up to the pleasure of imagining Sho's hand as his own.


	3. Chapter Two

Author's note:

This chapter is pretty long. Longer than the two other chapters. I even considered splitting it into two chapters..

There are no special warnings in this chapter.

Enjoy

**Chapter Two**

"Maybe it needs more salt…", Kei wondered out loud as he turned the salmon on the frying pan.

For the last couple of hours Kei had been digging his mind, trying to remember how to cook a real proper breakfast. As a vampire he could eat human foods, but didn't need to, and therefore rarely took the trouble to cook full meals. Instead, him and Sho would put something in the microwave and eat in front of the TV. Kei hadn't thought he was that bad at cooking, but now as he mixed the miso into the dashi he was wondering if the onion pieces were fine enough, and he couldn't recall whether or not Sho liked mushrooms.

_'Am I supposed to add the vegetables now?'_, Kei thought and turned around to get the small piles of mushroom, onion and other vegetables that he had cut. When he turned he accidentally hit the pot, and by reflex reached out to catch it. Kei let out a relived sigh as he caught it with his vampire speed, before it hit the floor. The relief was soon replaced by pain, and Kei hissed as the hot pot burned into his hand, making him almost drop it again.

"Damn it!", he said out loud and blew on his burned hand.

Even though Kei's hand was stinging with pain he didn't stop cooking, he was determined to make an at least half decent meal for Sho, who could wake up any second now.

Soon the rice cooker rang and he went to open it. The rice smelled nice enough, Kei thought, and with a confident feeling he went to grab a couple of bowls for Sho and himself.

He grabbed two cheap black bowls from the front, the ones they usually used if they had guests over, and pulled themselves together to actually cook something. When he removed them from the shelf, they revealed an old dark maroon bowl with a crack at the edge, which had been hiding in the back. Kei looked at the maroon bowl for while, and smiled to himself sure that instead of the black one this was the right bowl for Sho.

In the room in the other end of the flat, Sho was slowly waking up. Sho put his hand to his head, but the headache wasn't as bad as he had thought it would be. Relieved he went to put on a random pair of pants from the floor, and pull a green t shirt out of the pile of dirty clothes on the chair next to the window. Sho stared blankly. The sun was shining brightly through the tan curtains, emanating heat.

Sho pulled the curtain aside and revealed a bright blue, cloudless, sky. He squinted, still sensitive from sleep, and stood for while looking out at the city of Mallepa with half closed eyes.

Sho looked down at the children playing in the dirty streets, and the businessmen on their way home from an all-nighter at the bar, stumbling half asleep down the road, but was suddenly awoken from his haze by the sound of movement in the apartment. A chill of panic went through Sho's body, but he quickly collected himself and grabbed his gun from underneath his pillow. As quietly as possible Sho opened the door and peered out after whoever was moving around in the apartment. Sho saw nothing and moved along the wall, following the sound that seemed to originate in the kitchen. He loaded his gun, kicked the kitchen door open and pointed it at the person in the room.

"The fuck do you think you're doing!" Sho yelled at the intruder.

Kei jumped and almost dropped the maroon bowl that he was currently filling with misoshiru. He stared wide-eyed right into the muzzle of Sho's loaded gun. Taken aback Sho didn't withdraw his gun for a while as he tried to put together what the vampire was doing awake in midday.

"I'm… cooking breakfast", Kei said calmly but without moving his eyes from the circular opening in the gun pointing straight at his face.

As if he just now realized what he was doing, Sho quickly pulled his gun back and unloaded it onto the desk.

"What?" he asked dumbfounded.

"Just sit down", Kei said and pointed at one of the chairs around the small dining table.

Not taking his eyes away from the vampire, Sho sat down in the chair towards the covered window. For a couple of minutes Sho sat in complete silence, watching the vampire moving back and forth placing more and more dishes on the dining table.

"Why are you still up, Kei?", Sho finally asked frowning at Kei.

Kei didn't answer, but quit moving for a second contemplating what to say, before he continued to set the table without answering Sho's question.

"Kei…", Sho had gotten up and was blocking Kei's path. The vampire tried to move around but Sho stopped him and put his thumb under Kei's jaw, forcing him to look up so that Sho could get a clear view of the vampire's face. The usual dark circles under Kei's eyes were gone and his complexion seemed better, brighter and healthier.

"You look way better today", Sho stated.

Kei smiled softly and pushed Sho's hand down.

"All done, you can eat now", Kei said and put a pair of chopsticks down on the table.

Sho eyed the vampire but gave up and sat down.

"It smells great!" he said brightly and grabbed the chopsticks.

Kei sat down in front of Sho and was about to take a sip at the soup, when he realized that he hadn't even tried out the salmon before serving it. Kei's eyes grew wide in panic as he saw Sho take a generous bite of the fish. Suddenly Sho started coughing, he tried to control himself but couldn't help it and tears began to run down his cheeks.

Kei looked down in embarrassment and clutched the edges of the apron that he was still wearing.

"I'm sorry", he mumbled without looking up at Sho, his face turning red.

"How much salt did you add?", Sho asked in the middle of a coughing fit.

Kei tried to think and bit his tongue when he remembered. He had added salt more than one time, because he had been so focused not to forget doing it.

"You don't have to eat it", Kei said.

Kei's eyes were turning glossy and he quickly looked away. Sho realized that the shine in Kei's eyes were tears welling up and gasped.

"Of course I'll eat it!"

"You shouldn't eat it if you don't like it, Sho", Kei said and blinked the tears away, hoping that Sho hadn't noticed them.

"I do like it", Sho replied stubbornly.

"I'm not stupid Sho"

"No really I like it", Sho insisted and took another bite of the fish, this time prepared for the salty taste.

Kei was about to stand up and take the fish away from Sho, but Sho moved over so that the plate was out of Kei's reach.

"You made it for me and that's why it's good", "the taste isn't important".

Kei froze and repeated what Sho had said to him in his mind.

"If you're not going to eat yours, then give it to me!" Sho laughed and pointed at Kei's untouched food.

Kei smiled and went back to his chair.

Sho ate until his bowls and plate were so clean that they looked like they hadn't been used at all.

When they finished their breakfast, Kei followed Sho into the living room after Sho had made sure that the windows were securely covered. They were both sitting in the sofa and watching a random reality show about a group of home-stay mothers.

While they were watching the show Sho kept glancing over at Kei who was watching the screen intensively.

"Aren't you tired?" Sho asked.

Kei shook his head without taking his eyes away from the screen. Sho sank back into the sofa and began to pick at his braids absentmindedly.

After thirty minutes the show ended and another programme featuring a very tan girl at the beach came on. Kei suddenly sighed making Sho jump.

"Sho, go outside"

"What?"

"You don't have to stay just because I'm awake", "I know you want to go outside, I can see it".

In reality Kei was right. Sho had planned on spending the day out. He had thought about going to visit Toshi at the pizzeria, but was afraid that Kei would feel lonely if he was left to himself. Sho honestly hadn't expected that Kei would be awake at all and had planned on leaving without getting noticed.

"I don't want to catch a tan anyway", Sho said and smiled at Kei.

"Please Sho", Kei frowned.

Sho gave Kei a reassuring smile and went to the bathroom to redo his messed up braids.

Sho stood in front of the mirror that had seemed to grow smaller as he had become older. Sho reached up to the back of his head to take out the hair band that was holding together the thick tangle of braids, when he noticed the difference in the tone between the skin on his arms, and the part of his shoulder that had been revealed when he lifted his arms. Without noticing it Sho had caught a slight tan.

_'Must have been the day I went to get the necklace'_, Sho tried to think about that day and remembered that it indeed had been very sunny, and Kei hadn't been awake as he usually weren't on days like those.

Sho studied the white skin under his shirt and considered what he liked the most. Sho found that he wasn't entirely sure.

"Look, you already have a tan", Kei said appearing in the mirror behind Sho. Sho quickly hid the white skin.

"You might as well go outside", Kei continued.

"No I want to watch this show", Sho said and went past Kei on his way out of the bathroom. He sat down in the sofa and turned up the volume. Kei sat down next to him and looked from the screen to Sho's stubborn face. Kei knew that Sho didn't have any real interest in the TV show, and that he was trying to hide his longing for the outside world.

Kei leaned over and laid his head on the armrest. He took one last glance at Sho before he closed his eyes, feigning sleep.

Sho had been trying not to lose focus from the TV screen, but the show was extremely tiring and after about 10 minutes he looked over at Kei.

"Sleeping…", Sho whispered, keeping his voice low trying not to wake the sleeping man. He looked at the vampire for a couple of minutes, not sure what to do. After a couple more minutes, with the vampire showing no signs of waking up, Sho made up his mind and got up, grabbed his bag and went out of the door and into the busy streets outside.

Back in the apartment Kei was still pretending to be asleep in case Sho would come back. He had felt the slight sting when Sho had opened the door to the sunlit stairway. He knew that he had done right in pretending to be asleep. It was good for Sho to go out, to be with other humans. Sho was after all a human, and Kei wouldn't drag Sho down into the darkness with him for his own selfish reasons. He would not, he could not.

And yet, he couldn't help but silently form the words: _'come back', _when Sho left and he heard the door click.

It was extremely warm outside. The sun was almost too intense for Sho, and he was sure that Kei would fry in a second if he as much as tried to step out into this bright, sunny day. The thought disturbed Sho and he quickly changed his train of thought to the stalls and people swarming around him.

The area that Kei and Sho lived in wasn't anything special. It wasn't the worst slum you could find in Mallepa, but it definitely wasn't a nice neighbourhood either. Occasionally, some confused Chinese would bewilder himself in there and get beaten up by Japanese thugs who ruled the district, extorting money from anyone who tried to make a business.

Sho usually kept away from them. Kei had always taught him the importance of being neutral towards all ethnic groups, even other Japanese. The reason why, was that taking a team would leave them stuck with a certain group of people and endanger their undisturbed, anonymous living that Kei depended on to survive.

_'Or whatever you call it'_, Sho added in his mind.

Sho walked by a couple of fruit stalls that had moved outside to tempt the thirsty passer-bys, and took a shortcut through a small lane that was really just a space left out between two buildings, and not meant for people to walk through. The place he came out to was an open space where no driving was allowed.

In the middle was a park, one of few in Mallepa, with trees and people eating lunch under large parasols.

Sho inhaled deeply. It was as if the polluted air from the streets couldn't reach in here. Sho went over to a small shop and bought himself an ice pop. The taste wasn't anything special, but Sho was already sweating heavily and the cool feeling down his throat was more than welcome.

Sho found himself a tree to lean against as he sat down in the dry grass to finish his ice pop.

He licked the pop and looked up into the sky, his flow of thought moved back to Kei who he thought definitely had been uncharacteristically frisky that morning.

"Who did you feed from last night Kei?", Sho asked out loud.

_'Who did you kill last night?'_

When Sho first met Kei he hadn't been disturbed by his nature, but as he grew older, and he had learned the value of life, he had started to doubt whether being a vampire really was an excuse to take other people's lives. He hadn't talked about it with Kei, as he was aware that the vampire was already dealing with a feeling of guilt, which he was trying to hide from him. But was it really ok? If it had been anyone but Kei, Sho thought that he probably wouldn't think it ok for someone to live from other people's death.

Sho knew that Kei would feel betrayed if he tried to discuss the matter and so he didn't dare. Kei was strong in a physical sense, but Sho knew that the psyche of the vampire was very frail. Sho had seen it the day him and Kei had met. The day Kei had thought to end his pitiful life.

Sho looked at the families sitting in groups all over the park. They looked happy. Mothers and fathers playing with and taking care of their children. Letting them use up all of their energy in this peaceful, sacred park and protecting them from the reality of the cruel world on the other side.

Sho suddenly felt out of place, he felt as if the good people sitting innocently around him would be affected by his pollution, if he didn't leave soon. Even though his body-count was nowhere as close as Kei's, he was a killer too. Though, he never killed unless it was strictly necessary. He never killed if he wasn't in mortal danger or if he wasn't one hundred per cent sure that the people he killed were evil people, and that killing them would only better the world. With that Sho kept his conscience at bay.

Out of nowhere Sho was hit by a two-coloured ball. A small girl with shiny black hair ran over to him, but stopped a couple of meters away and looked from the ball to Sho's face.

Sho smiled at the girl and handed the ball over, but in the moment she took the ball from his hands Sho was hit with what he had thought to be a long forgotten memory.

_Shinji and Toshi were away to look for something to eat. In the meanwhile Sho was all by himself in the large, messy room in the abandoned building. Or he wasn't completely alone; in the room on the other side of the concrete wall was the strange man that had been living with them for almost a year now. He had blonde hair and brown eyes, but the strangest thing about him was that he was a vampire. That was something Sho had learned of already the first day they had met._

_Sho was getting bored of waiting by himself and started to play with his green ball. It was kind of flat, but still, it was a light ball and it flew far away every time he kicked it. Sho had been kicking the ball around for almost fifteen minutes when he accidentally kicked it into the next room._

_"I'm sorry Kei I know I'm not supposed to…", Sho stopped talking midsentence. Kei was crouching on the floor with his teeth in a woman's neck. It was as if Kei hadn't even heard Sho even though he had been pretty loud, he wasn't looking up and when Sho bowed down to look in Kei's eyes, they seemed blank and empty. Every time Kei lapped up some of the woman's blood it made a nauseating slurping sound. _

_"Get away from that monster now Sho", Shinji said appearing in the door behind Sho._

_"But he doesn't look well…", Sho said worriedly._

_"Sho that's not a him, that's an it", "can't you see it?"_

_"Sho looked back at Kei who was still unattached to the world. Normally Kei would at least look a slight bit annoyed when Shinji said that kind of stuff, but right now it was as if the Kei Sho knew wasn't even in there. _

_"Come on!", Shinji said and grabbed Sho's arm pulling him away from the vampire._

_Sho hadn't been able to sleep that night. Every time he closed his eyes he could see Kei's bloodied face and the horrified expression of the woman beneath him._

"Mister, can I have my ball?"

"Wh..?", as soon as Sho realized that he was still holding on to the girl's ball, he let go of it and apologized. She quickly ran over to her parents with a scared expression and pointed at Sho.

Sho took it as a key for him to leave the park. He got up, threw the remaining stick from the pop in the trash and slipped down a small lane on the other side of the park. Sho sighed as he returned to the true Mallepa.

The ice pop had been good but it had also started Sho's stomach which was now growling for food. Without realizing it, Sho had actually been sitting in the park for a good two hours.

He was now heading towards the pizzeria where Toshi worked, in hope of getting to see his friend, and maybe also get a cheap bite while he was there. On the way there Sho passed several dodgy looking office buildings. They were all plastered in posters with the images of children. It was not strange for a child to go missing in Mallepa, but Sho still thought it was sad every time he saw the innocent faces. More than twenty posters of the same boy had been taped over the old posters very recently, the boy was smiling brightly in the picture, but it was his blue eyes, so much alike his own, that had caught Sho's attention and he read: "AIKAWA KENTA – 8 YEARS OLD - MISSING FROM MALLEPA SOUTHWEST DISTRICT". Sho read that the boy had only been gone for one day, but that was still plenty for something to happen in Mallepa. There were many bad people in Mallepa who wouldn't think twice about hurting a young boy, Sho knew that, as he had been on the streets himself from a very young age. Sho shook his head and sighed, turning his face away from the posters and continued down the alleyway.

But as if the boy was trying to haunt him with his clear eyes, his poster seemed to appear on every corner that Sho went by.

Back at the apartment Kei had been searching through his closet for the last fifteen minutes. He cursed at himself for not keeping more order in there, and decided that it would be easier to just throw everything out on the floor. And so he did and finally found what he was looking for. Kei didn't remember where he had gotten it from and since it had never fitted him he didn't remember ever wearing it either. It was actually not supposed to be a dress but it was so long that it functioned as so on him. Kei took his clothes off and pulled the white piece of cloth over his head. He looked at himself in the mirror and wrinkled his nose. The dress was baggy and it looked more like he had put a cloth sack on than anything else. In an attempt to give it more shape he tied a belt around his waist, and looked at himself again. When he was satisfied he moved on to his hair, he combed through it with his fingers and tried to make the blonde locks lay down. When he was sure that all the hairs were in place, he took a closer look at his face. When he looked closely he thought he could see a shadow above his lip and on his chin, it bothered him and he went to shave.

When Kei was sure that his chin was soft and smooth he went back to his room and looked at himself, but thought that something was still missing.

_'Make up'_

But Kei didn't own any make up. He tried to think but couldn't come up with anything smarter, and as he wasn't keen on the idea of using permanent marker on his face, he bit down on his thumb and coloured his lips with the small droplets of blood. He stared at himself, and when he thought of how he would explain his current appearance to Sho if he suddenly came home, he let out a sharp sarcastic laugh. He sat down on the bed and messed up his hair. He licked his lips clean of blood and untied the belt around his waist. He didn't have the confidence to meet Sho like this, and was sure that he would just feel weirded out anyway.

Instead of the white dress he put on a light plum shirt and a pair of white trousers with beads on them, after which he returned to the living room.

"Hey Sho!", Toshi happily exclaimed as Sho entered the pizzeria, "I was planning on calling you later".

"What for?", Sho asked and sat down on one of the tall stools next to the checkout.

"This Wednesday", Toshi said and looked around at the few other people sitting in the pizzeria. When he was sure that no one was listening he continued: "according to informed sources a group of Chan's men are coming to the district to pick up some money".

Sho leaned over the cash register and whispered to Toshi: "How much are we talking about?"

"As far as I've been told – a fair bit"

Sho considered, it had been a while since they had been on a mission and they were slowly running out of money. These kinds of missions were their only income, but he didn't like to accept them without Kei's approval.

"Will you be able to give them some of your pizzas?", Sho asked knowing that Toshi would understand what he meant by "pizzas". It was part of their strategy, Toshi would give the thugs drugged pizzas making them fall asleep, while Sho and Kei would run in and take the money, hopefully unnoticed. They had run into trouble before and had been forced to use their guns. Sho had a whole pile of clothes with bullet holes at home, it had come close before, but he had never actually been shot and hurt.

When Toshi said that he had already planned out how he would carry out his part of the mission, Sho nodded and made a mental note to explain it to Kei when he got home.

"Kei hasn't said anything about any plans so I think he'll be good for Wednesday too. We'll take it", said Sho.

"Good!", said Toshi, "Talking about Kei, how is he doing?"

Sho wondered why Toshi was interested in how the vampire was doing already, they had after all seen each other just yesterday.

"Uhh…", Sho thought about this morning, "I didn't ask but he looked well".

"Really?", Toshi asked with raised eyebrows.

Sho looked at Toshi suspiciously: "… Kei left early last night, do you know why?"

Toshi looked at Sho for a while, as if he was carefully considering what to answer. He slowly shook his head from side to side and said: "I have no idea".

"But you were gone for a while too", Sho pouted.

"Oh so you noticed", Toshi stated teasingly, "I thought you might have been too busy with something else".

Sho blushed and looked away.

"Just tell me if you know anything", said Sho.

"I don't"

Sho clicked his tongue and Toshi smiled at his childishness.

"So what is the status with you and Yi-Che?"

Sho looked down at his hands and said: "Uhh… well… I don't really know. I forgot to ask her when we could see each other again… I even forgot to ask for her mobile number". Sho cursed at himself for being stupid enough to forget something as important as asking for her number. He already had Son's, but he thought it too embarrassing and very uncool to ask through her brother. Embarrassing Yi-Che was really the last thing Sho wanted.

Toshi laughed at Sho's misfortune, but for a split second Sho thought he saw relief in Toshi's face. Sho blinked and came to the conclusion that he probably had been mistaken.

"Can't you just give me something to eat instead of asking all of these questions?!", Sho spat at the still laughing Toshi.

"Well sure but you were the one who came here".

Toshi turned around and went out back, while Sho crossed his arms and looked up at the ceiling.

10 Minutes later Toshi came out with a hot steaming pizza and placed it in front of Sho.

Sho was about to grab the biggest piece when Toshi pulled the plate away.

"What!?", Sho yelled.

"Nothing, I just want to remind you that you still have to pay", and then he pushed the plate back to Sho and smiled.

"It will get busy in a minute and I have to deliver a couple of orders, so I have to leave now", Toshi said.

"mmmk", Sho mumbled, his mouth full of pizza.

"You got all the information you need about Wednesday?", Toshi asked half way out of the door.

Sho nodded and Toshi left.

When Toshi had left Sho quickly grew bored. After picking at his food for 30 minutes, Sho decided to call Son and ask him for Yi-Che's number anyway. Sho held his breath and prepared what he would say in case Son gave the phone to Yi-Che, but he was in no luck. The phone didn't get picked up and he tried again 5 minutes later. This time someone answered.

"H..hello?", said Sho.

No one said anything but Sho could hear movement on the other side and knew there was someone there.

"Yi-Che…is it you? It's Sho"

Sho could hear a quiet intake of breath and all of a sudden he had forgotten what he wanted to say.

"Uhm…", he said cleverly.

"Right so… uhm… yeah… this is my number… if you want it?"

So silent that he almost missed it, he heard Yi-Che whisper "yes", in the other end.

"Ok then! So yeah, ok, have a good day then!" Sho said awkwardly and hung up.

Sho spent another 30 minutes with his face in his hands.

Outside it was slowly getting darker, it was a long walk home and Sho decided he better leave now.

It took almost a whole hour for Sho to walk all the way home, and when he finally got there it was pitch black outside.

Sho unlocked the door and entered the dark apartment. It was totally quiet and Kei didn't appear to be home.

Sho threw his bag on top of his bed and went into the living room to watch TV.

In the middle of a pile of what appeared to be cooking books lay Kei, fast asleep, with a still concentrated look on his face. Sho smiled crookedly at the vampire and squatted down next to him.

_'Been up all day?'_

He could hear the vampire's slow, steady breath.

Next to Kei's hand was the TV remote, Sho grabbed it and flicked the TV on. He turned the volume all the way down in the hopes of not waking Kei up.

Sho was about to change the channel but froze when a familiar image appeared on the screen. He turned the volume up a slight bit. It was the boy with the blue eyes from the poster, he had been found. He was dead.

A knot formed in Sho's throat, he quickly turned the TV off and sat in complete darkness. Slowly he rose from the sofa and turned on a small night light. Being able to see, he went back over to where Kei was lying and picked the small man up easily. Sho was careful not to wake him up as he carried him to his room, and gently placed him on top of the bed. He lingered there for a couple of minutes, his eyes had gotten used to the darkness and he could now see Kei's peaceful expression. Slowly Sho reached for the blonde locks on top of the vampires head. He softy ran his fingers through the pale hairs, continuing down and caressing Kei's soft cheek with the back side of two of his fingers. Sho thought that his skin was surprisingly soft, and suddenly had an urge to feel Kei's neck to see if the skin was just as soft there. As if he had been schocked Sho pulled his hand back, embarrassedly realizing what he was doing. He turned around and quickly returned to the living room.

He turned the TV on, but the only interesting thing was the news channel, where they were showing the same news over and over again. Soon the boy's face was on the screen again and this time Sho listened more closely.

_"…the body of 8 year old Japanese born Aikawa Kenta… found in an abandoned building close to…" _but it was the last part that caught Sho's attention, _"strange as it is, the boy appears to have been emptied of blood"_

Sho continued to watch the show, waiting for the boy to appear on the screen again, until he felt a small hand on his shoulder. Sho jumped and quickly looked over his shoulder. It was Kei.

Kei didn't comment Sho's fidgety and looked at the TV screen with knitted eyebrows.

"Why are you watching the news, Sho?"

"A boy has been murdered not far from here", Sho stated trying to keep his voice neutral.

Kei sighed: "That is not exactly uncommon here in Mallepa".

Sho shook his head: "No… but the weird thing is that he was found completely dry of blood".

Kei looked sharply at Sho.

Sho tried to swallow the knot in his throat.

"… you didn't… this boy… do you have an idea about what happened to him?", he asked nervously.

"What are you getting at, Sho?", Kei hissed.

"It's just... he was found in an abandoned building just like the one we used to live in".

"Are you asking me if I did it?", Kei asked.

Sho tensed, but slowly nodded.

Suddenly Kei rose from the sofa and angrily walked out of the room. Before he closed the door he said: "It's none of your business".

A couple of minutes later Sho left the living room too. He went to the bathroom and looked at his reflection in the mirror. Sho thought he could see dark lines all over his face and leaned closer in to get a better view. The lines were everywhere, painting his face in black. Sho opened his mouth slightly. He almost didn't believe his reflection, it was a strange feeling as if some other person, half hidden in dark shadows, was looking back at him. His reflection stared at him with eerie pale eyes, and that was when he realized. He hadn't seen it before, but now he finally understood. He was just as guilty in the killing of the small boy, he knew about Kei, he didn't do anything to stop him, he even supported him and by doing so he had become just as tainted. It was his fault that the boy was dead.

He slowly backed away from the mirror until he was stopped by a hand on his back.

"Sho… are you ok?", Kei asked with worry in his voice. Kei had come back to say he was sorry about before, but was taken aback by the intensity of which Sho was staring at himself in the mirror.

"I'm tired I need sleep", Sho said in a robotic voice and quickly walked around the vampire and out of the room.

Kei sank down on the cold bathroom floor with his back against the tile-wall. In the background he could hear the reporter in the TV repeat the newscast about the boy. Kei cocked his head to the side and closed his eyes.

_'I'm sorry'_

___'I'm sorry, Sho'_


	4. Chapter Three

_Author's note:_

_For this chapter there is a (fairly graphic) violence warning. The last chapter was pretty angsty, sorry, this chapter will have more action and also some pretty cute moments if I should say so myself. Also this is another long chapter._

_I looked at the story view count thing, and it seems that there actually are a couple of people who have read this. So thank you!_

_If anyone is confused about the timeline I'm going with, then I'll let you know that Sho is currently 19 years old._

_Enjoy_

Chapter Three

Kei walked restlessly around inside the quiet apartment. The darkness outside was calling for him, but he ignored it and continued to pace back and forth between the living room and the bathroom. He tried to think about the upcoming mission Sho had mentioned to him, but couldn't focus and kept sinking into worry. The last couple of days Sho had barely spoken to Kei. Every time he had left his room, it had been with a blank expression and without saying a word. Kei had even tried to stay awake in the daytime, in case Sho would start talking again, but he hadn't. The only time Sho had said something was one night at the dinner table.

_Sho had been staring at his food for over ten minutes before he finally began to speak._

_Kei 's eyes widened, he had been sitting on needles waiting for Sho to finally talk to him again, but when he finally looked like he was going to do so, Kei found that he was scared to hear whatever he had to say._

_"This Wednesday…", he began, but quickly fell quiet again. _

_ "Yes… ?", Kei prodded, trying to keep Sho from disappearing. _

_"Toshi, there's a mission"._

_"Oh", Kei said. _

_'A mission'_

_Sho slowly raised his head, and for the first time in days their eyes met. Sho's hair was hanging loose like wavy, tan veils and a small, dark line ran down between his eyebrows, as if he had been thinking heavily. Kei didn't like that line, it didn't belong in Sho's otherwise so youthful face. He almost reached out to straighten it away, but he managed to stop himself. He was sure that Sho would flinch at his touch. Instead he clenched his fists under the table, and waited for Sho to continue._

_"This Wednesday, a couple of Chan's men will come to this district to pick up some money", Sho continued monotonically, "Toshi texted me the address"._

_Kei nodded, it was true that they were running out of money, and no matter what they had to pay their rent. Kei inhaled to ask about further details about the mission, but when he opened his mouth Sho stood up and left the room, his food untouched. _

Kei drew the curtains back and looked out. Even though it was midnight the streets were full of people. There was always life, and people hunting to destroy that same life, in the streets of Mallepa. Kei didn't want to admit it to himself, but he was already starting to feel weak from lack of blood. He tried not to think about his last meal. Tried not to remember the bright blue eyes turning hazy as they died out, and above all, he tried his best to forget the satisfaction it had brought to him.

Kei quickly closed the curtains again and turned around. He wandered down the small hall, pass his own room and stopped in front of Sho's closed door. He placed his hand on the door.

He leaned over and pressed his forehead against the cold surface.

_'Sho, do you hate me now?'_

He closed his eyes and tried his best to hate Sho for making him feel so guilty, but he couldn't. After all he was guilty.

And after all it was impossible for him to ever hate Sho.

Kei decided that it couldn't hurt to take a peek inside the room. He listened carefully at the door, and heard nothing but Sho's steady breath. As quietly as possible, he opened the door and looked inside with one eye.

Sho wasn't lying down. He was sitting on top of the bed with his back towards the door. Kei gasped and quickly closed the door, praying that Sho hadn't heard him. Kei stood with his back against the door and tried to steady his breath, when he heard Sho's voice.

"Come in, I know you're there".

Kei closed his eyes and moved his hand to the doorknob. He slowly turned the knob and opened the door. Sho was now sitting with his front towards Kei, with an expression that Kei wasn't able to read.

"Come", Sho said and patted the top of the bed beside him.

Kei went over to stand in front of Sho, but didn't sit down. Even though he wanted to, he was afraid that Sho would push him away again if he came any closer.

Sho grabbed Kei's wrist and gave it a slight tug, so that he finally sat down beside him. Kei tried not to tense, when Sho put his head on his shoulder.

"Sho…", but Sho didn't let Kei finish his sentence.

"Kei… I missed you", a tear rolled down his cheek.

Kei felt his body melt and the anxious feeling he had been carrying for days started to fade.

Kei hushed at Sho, like he had done so many times when Sho had come to him with a bad dream as a child, and stroked his hair in a calming rhythm.

"Won't you stay, just for a little while", Sho asked so quietly that it was almost inaudible.

Kei smiled at Sho's downturned face and continued to run his fingers through the tangles on top of the younger man's head.

Right now Kei priced the fact that Sho was a human more than ever, he was sure, that if Sho had been vampire, he would have been able to hear the rapid speed with which Kei's heart was beating. Kei bit his lip and took a deep breath through his nose.

It was pitch black in the room, and Sho wasn't able to make out anything but the outline of Kei's figure. He could though, feel Kei's breath on his cheek as he moved his head so that his forehead leaned against his chin.

Sho tried to look up through his eyelashes. In the darkness he couldn't see the pollution. Right now there was no vampire beside him, just Kei, the one steady presence in Sho's life. The one person he knew would always be there. Sho moved closer. The only thing he felt was the softness of Kei's skin and the warmth that his body emitted.

With a sense of peace and security Sho closed his eyes.

Kei tried to count the minutes passing by, so that his mind wouldn't wander under the proximity of Sho's lips to his neck. When fifteen minutes had passed, Kei was sure that Sho had fallen asleep, and was about the lay the man down on the bed when Sho said: "Kei, will you make breakfast today?"

Kei let out a short sarcastic laugh and gave Sho's shoulder a gentle squeeze.

"Sho, can you write the address down so I can type it into the GPS?", Kei asked Sho, who was currently cleaning his gun. Sho looked at the piece of black steel from every angle, flicking even the tiniest bit of dust off it, like it was some old treasured heirloom. He didn't even register Kei's question.

"Sho!"

"What?"

Kei sighed as his voice finally came through.

"Can you give me the address so I can type it into the GPS?", Kei repeated while tapping his fingers on the table.

"Oh right, it's in the outskirts of the Japanese district, so it shouldn't be too far", Sho said.

"I just want to make sure we'll get there on time"

Sho let out an agreeing sound and scribbled the address on the margin of a newspaper, which was lying open on the table. Kei ripped the corner off and put it into his pocket. He then looked at Sho with a serious expression.

"Let's go through the strategy again", he said.

"But aren't we just going to do it like we always do?", Sho answered impatiently.

Sho just wanted to get on with it. His stomach was always tickling with butterflies before a mission, partly from being nervous and partly from being excited.

Kei massaged the bridge of his nose, trying not to get impatient with Sho, who he knew wasn't big on strategy and liked to improvise.

"Yes Sho, we're going to do it the same way as we always do it", Kei said and shushed at Sho so he wouldn't interrupt, "but, it's highly important that we remember every detail. Safety comes first, and that's why we need to make a routine briefing _every single time_", Kei put pressure on the last part, so that he was sure that Sho would understand the importance.

Sho stretched his arms and said: "ok then, first we call Toshi, make sure he has delivered the pizzas, then we go in as quietly as possible and take the money".

Kei ran his fingers through his hair and sighed loudly.

"No Sho, in more detail".

"Ok, we call Toshi-"

"Yes, and?"

"Then we go in", Sho made circles in the air as he explained.

"No!", said Kei, "then _I_ go in to get a quick view of the situation, and to check how many they are"

"Right, right", Sho snorted.

"_Then_ we go in and take the money"

"And all the time I'm there with you, you do not leave my side", Kei added.

"Right", Sho said and clapped his hands, "ok, I'll call Toshi to see how it's going at his end!"

Kei only had a couple of seconds to think before he grabbed onto Sho's sleeve, "Wait, Sho!"

Sho looked down at Kei who was still sitting.

"You don't have to do it", Kei said.

"What?"

"I don't think you need to come, I can do it by myself"

_'That way you'll be safe'_, Kei thought. He already knew that Sho was going to get angry at him for saying this, but he couldn't help it. Even though they had been on several missions now, Kei was still scared for Sho every time. Sho might look much like a man now, but Kei knew that Sho was still just a boy. Sho was still affected by the impulsiveness of teen-age, one day his reflects might betray him. He feared that Sho would misfire; that he would stumble and give the enemy the two seconds it would take for them to put him to an end. Kei felt angry at himself for having taught Sho how to use a weapon to begin with.

"Kei, you can't make me stay home!"

_'I could'_

"I'll go no matter what you say, I want to earn my part", Sho said, voice raised, "I'm not a little child anymore!"

_'Next to me you're so young, Sho'_

Sho stood there and looked stubbornly at Kei with narrowed eyes.

"Ok then, but remember-"

"-to stay by your side", Sho finished.

"Yes", Kei said.

Sho shook his head and picked up his phone to call Toshi.

At 22:00 Sho and Kei arrived at the building. Kei, who was driving the car, parked a couple of blocks away from where they would enter, so that they wouldn't be noticed before everything was ready.

"Ok, call Toshi now, Sho", Kei whispered.

Sho nodded and picked up his white phone. He went through the few contacts and clicked the call button when he found Toshi.

Sho held the phone to his ear and waited for Toshi to pick up.

"….beep… beep… beep… you have reached-"

"He's not picking up!", Sho was starting to feel scared, why was Toshi not picking up? They always called him before they went in and he always answered his phone.

"Maybe you should try again", Kei was trying to sound calm, but a bad feeling was slowly taking form in his stomach. Sho redialed, but there was still no one at the other end. Sho stared at his phone, and suddenly opened the car door.

"Where are you going!?", Kei said.

"We can't just sit here!", Sho yelled at Kei and began to move out of the car.

"No, wait, Sho!", Kei held on to Sho's wrist. Sho tried to escape Kei's grasp, but wasn't able to do anything since Kei was so much stronger.

"Sho get back in the car!"

"Let go of me!"

"Sho!", Kei wasn't keen on using his strength, but saw no other way. He pulled at Sho's wrist and forced him back into the car.

"Sho, calm down".

"I'm not going to calm down!", Sho yelled, "What if the reason why Toshi isn't answering is because they have gotten to him?"

"But Sho if we go in there without getting a picture of the situation it will just be more dangerous. Dangerous for all of us", Kei tried to reason with Sho, but Sho wasn't going to listen to reason, he needed to save his friend.

"Kei, if they have him then the most dangerous part will be sitting here doing nothing!", and with that Sho wrenched himself free from Kei's grasp and left the car.

"Damn it, Sho!", Kei exclaimed, smacked the car door and went after the younger man into the dark streets of Mallepa.

"Sho you should go back in the car, if they really have Toshi then they probably haven't eaten the pizza", Kei yelled after Sho who was meters ahead of him.

Sho ignored Kei's warning and sped up. He walked around the corner and into a small alley on the east side of the building, where they had been told the money transfer would take place. Sho leaned against the wall next to a dodgy-looking door that led into the kitchen. Careful not to be seen, he looked through the small window, searching for any kind of movement.

"Sho, if you could at least just wait here until I've checked it out", Kei hissed under his breath. Sho raised his index finger to his lips and shushed at Kei. He slowly moved his hand to the doorknob and as quietly as possible opened it. The door was not locked, and with raised gun he entered the building, Kei, while still in disagreement, followed close behind.

The light in the kitchen was dim and the room was filled with the stench of putrid food. The building had probably not been used for anything legal in a while.

"There's no one in here", Kei said after giving the room a scan, in this darkness Sho had no chance of spotting any enemies on time.

Sho nodded and was about to move on to the next room, when Kei walked in front of him.

"Sho, let me go first… Sho, please", Kei begged.

Sho didn't answer, but took a step back, to let Kei get open the door in front of them. The kitchen brought them to a white hall. They decided to take the last door, the one that was most likely to let them to the stairs.

Kei listened and froze. There was someone there. Kei had caught the scent of humans, and could hear at least two people, quietly breathing on the other side of the door.

Kei raised his hand and signaled to Sho to get his gun ready. Sho clenched his teeth together, and moved his finger to the trigger as Kei didn't waste any more time and opened the door.

But there was no need to fire. It was true that two men were present, but they were both fast asleep on their posts behind the counter. Sho and Kei had miscalculated, and instead of ending up by the stairs, they had ended up in a messy and grey foyer. It carried signs of having recently been used, trails in the dust ran from the entrance door to the two elevators next to the counter.

"Kei look, Toshi was definitely here", Sho said and held up a half eaten piece of pizza. Kei went over to Sho and searched the two sleeping men's clothes for any kind of ID.

"These two aren't Chan's… They are Japanese nationals", Kei said, and held up the driver's license he had found in the chest pocket in one of the men's shirts.

"Kei, this isn't good…"

Kei looked up from the piece of plastic to where Sho was now standing. In his hands he held a pizza box. A pizza box with the name of the restaurant that Toshi worked at printed on top. The pizza inside was untouched, except for the two slices the Japanese men by the counter had eaten.

For a while Sho clutched the pizza box tightly without saying anything, then he threw it at the floor and walked towards the elevator.

"Sho we should take the stairs-", Kei said, but it was too late. Sho had already clicked the button and the loud sound of an old, rusty elevator moving downwards was impossible to mistake. Kei was sure that this sound could easily alert all of Chan's men. They didn't exchange words as they waited for the elevator to arrive, it seemed to take so much longer than normal, and in the silence Kei became aware of his thundering heart. He was scared, nothing was going the way they had planned, and he feared for Toshi. Even though the bond Sho and Toshi shared was special, almost like brothers, Kei also cared a lot about the man. Sho aside, Toshi was maybe the only real friend Kei had had in many, many years.

The elevator arrived and they stepped inside, both of them facing the door.

"What stair should we go to?", Sho asked nervously moving his hand up and down the numbers. Kei shook his head, since he hadn't been able to check it out beforehand, he had no idea where they should go. Sho closed his eyes and clicked the 4 button, hoping for the best.

With a rattling sound, the elevator took them to the fourth stair. The door made a clicking sound and slid to the side. In front of them stood a man, who with his fine suit was unmistakably one of Chan's. Sho pulled his gun and held it towards the dumbfounded man's face.

"Where is Toshi?", Sho said in a firm voice.

The man didn't answer. His face changed into a grin as he moved his hand to his pocket.

"I would lower my gun if I was you, kid", he said in Chinese.

Sho's eyes widened, he tightened his grip around the gun and was about to shoot, when Kei slapped his hand out of the way.

"What are you doing!?", Sho yelled.

"Smart guy, the small one", the man laughed.

Sho looked at Kei in disbelief and was shocked to find his face completely blank.

And then it went so fast that Sho didn't realize what had happened before it was over. Kei had made one jump to get behind the man, and in one swift movement, he had given his head a lethal tug, breaking his neck with a horrible crackling sound. He died immediately.

"Sho, we need to make as little noise as possible", Kei said seemingly unfazed.

It was rare for Kei to show the true extend of the monstrous power that he carried, and Sho found that he, just for a second, had been caught scared. For a split second, Kei had disappeared and been replaced by the monster Sho always tried his best not to see. Sho blinked and tried to pull himself together with the thought of Toshi, who was most likely somewhere nearby.

Sho stepped over the dead body, and went on without looking back at Kei who was right behind him.

At the end of the hall, they heard voices, but this time they were prepared. They kicked the door in and had the men at bullet point. The two men in the room didn't look too surprised to see Sho and Kei and didn't move out of the sofa.

"Where have you taken him?", Sho yelled at one of the men in Chinese.

The man didn't answer, instead he calmly took a sip out of his tea cup and looked from Sho to Kei.

"And what are you planning to do if I tell you?", he finally said.

"If you don't tell me I'll shoot you right here", Sho hissed.

The man raised his eyebrows and said: "Even if you shoot me, you won't make it out alive"

"Shut up and tell me!"

"What about you", the man pointed at Kei, "you don't look like someone who's on a rescue mission"

Kei simply narrowed his eyes and tightened his grip around his gun.

"Where. Is. Toshi?", Sho said forcefully.

The man looked towards Sho again, but for a moment his eyes wandered over Sho's right shoulder. Sho realized that he was looking at someone behind them. He quickly spun around and shot the two men who had appeared in the door, ready to shoot them from behind. Sho's sudden movement had given the men in the sofa time to pull their own guns, but they weren't fast enough. Before they could pull the trigger Kei had shot both of them dead.

Suddenly Sho and Kei heard doors open all around. The rest of Chan's men had been alerted by the sound of gunshots and were now approaching from everywhere. Kei and Sho looked at each other and rushed back into the hall. They ran towards the door at the other end. Now it didn't matter how much sound they made, but before they could reach the door, three more men had jumped in front of them. Kei took two of them out, and Sho hit the last one in the gut. Shots were fired from behind, and Kei could only look on in horror as one of them grazed Sho's cheek. Kei stopped in his tracks, turned around and ran towards the men who had shot at Sho. He fired the rest of his shots at the man in front, and used his teeth to rip the other man's throat open. His blood spurted into Kei's mouth and out on the pale floor. He gargled and coughed violently a few times before he too was dead.

Even though he had also been preoccupied by three of Chan's men, who had come from one of the other rooms in the hall, Sho had seen it all through the corner of his eye. He was thankful that Kei had saved him, but couldn't control his stomach, which had suddenly become upset on the brink of throwing up. Sho bit his lip. He didn't have time to think about such things now. He turned around and went through the door, ignoring Kei's plead for him to wait.

"Sho!", Kei could only yell as Sho went through the door at the end of the hall.

Kei looked at the closing door in horrified panic. Everywhere around him the blood of the men he had killed was pooling up in big red ponds. Kei truly wanted to run after Sho, he wanted to save Toshi, but the smell was holding him down. The room was filled with bodies, filled with the rusty scent of human blood.

He tried to fight his instinct to feed the hunger that was more adamant than ever before, in the middle of this wickedly delicious puddle of gore. It would be so easy to step into temptation, but the sound of gunshots shook him out of his trance.

_'Sho?'_

It was impossible to tell if the one shooting had been Sho, or if Sho had been the one to be shot at. Kei quickly ran to the door and opened it up so forcefully that it was torn from its frame.

Behind the door was a staircase and somewhere far above he could hear the sound of footsteps. Kei rushed up the stairs as fast as he possibly could.

"Toshi!"

Between four of Chan's men sat Toshi. He didn't look hurt, but his hands were tied and his mouth gagged. Sho could feel relief rushing through his body.

_'I made it…'_, he thought, but the relief was short-lived as the men drew their guns and pointed them at Sho at the same time.

"You're supposed to be the one behind all of this?", the tallest of the four men said and gave Sho a scan, "You seriously thought you could get away with poisoning us?", he looked over at the three other men who joined him in laughter.

"It's a luck we brought those two Japanese bastards, we were pretty sure no one had ordered pizza".

Sho narrowed his eyes. He now understood that the thugs must have forced the two men in the foyer to eat the pizza, before they had taken anything themselves.

"You can never be too careful with you dirty Japanese", he grunted.

Slowly the man turned around and walked over to where Toshi was lying. Toshi gave Sho a desperate look. He tried to say something through the gag, but Sho wasn't able to decipher.

The man pointed his gun at Toshi and said: "We won't be needing you anymore", but before he could pull the trigger, Sho had shot him in the back of his head.

The three other men let out an angry yell, and Sho jumped behind a heavy wooden desk to avoid the bullets that were shot at him like hail. Sho held his gun close and took three deep breaths. He knew that he wouldn't stand a chance by himself. Soon Sho could hear slow footsteps approaching his hiding-spot.

_'Kei…Kei!'_, he called out in his mind.

"Hiding, are we, pretty boy?", the man spat and looked down at Sho with a crooked grin. He pushed the muzzle so forcefully to Sho's forehead that it left a mark.

_"Bam"__**, **_with a loud thud Kei came through the door and entered the room. The sound took away the attention from the thug for long enough for Sho to shoot him in the chest. The man fell on his back and Kei ran over to Sho.

"Sho, Sho! Are you ok?", Kei yelled, and patted all over Sho's body for injuries. He ran his finger over the long bruise on Sho's cheek and looked at Sho with worry in his eyes.

"I'm fine, I'm fine!", Sho said and pushed Kei's hand away.

_"Bang"_, a gun had been fired, but not at Kei and Sho. Sho froze. They had shot Toshi, they had killed Toshi. Tears welled up in his eyes as he rose from his hiding spot. When he stepped forward he pulled his gun and shot the man who was standing next to Toshi's body. Sho didn't want to look at Toshi, but he knew he couldn't leave him there. He ran across the room when he felt a sudden, sharp pain. Blood oozed from his shoulder, he had been shot. Sho winched and fell to his knees in pain, before he could reach Toshi. But then he noticed. Toshi was alive, the bullet had grazed his ear, but he was alive and shaking his head violently at Sho.

Kei had seen the bullet hit Sho, and for a moment he had frozen. This had given the last of the four thugs enough time to walk up to Sho, who was still in too much pain to react. This quickly brought Kei to his senses. He drew his gun and fired, but nothing happened. He had forgotten that he was out of ammunition. Desperately he clicked the trigger three more times, but still nothing. It felt as if the world had slowed down, when the man took the final step to where Sho was sitting, and held his gun to the back of Sho's head. Everything went black for Kei's eyes, but in the darkness he felt his body move on its own, with a speed he didn't even know he mastered.

A gunshot sounded just behind Sho, but he didn't feel any pain. He was sure that at that proximity he would have been killed, but he was still alive. More gunshots followed but he still didn't feel anything aside from the slowly subsiding sting in his shoulder. Sho looked behind him, and was horrified by what he found. Behind him lay Kei, his white shirt had been completely painted in crimson and a large pool of sticky, red blood was taking form underneath him. Kei's eyes were pale and wide open, his mouth slightly agape. He didn't blink.

Sho looked at Kei's lifeless body for a couple of seconds without knowing what to do. He moved his gaze from Kei and looked up at the shooter who had been hurt too. The man was clutching his bleeding hand, and Sho could see that he was missing a couple of fingers. Sho's body was overtaken by a numb feeling, when he pointed the gun at the man's face and shot him dead between the eyes.

"Kei! Kei", Sho's voice was shaky as he sank to his knees next to Kei who was still not moving. Sho laid Kei's head on his lap and carefully brushed his bangs aside. Kei's eyes were staring creepily up without focusing, and the horrible thought that Kei might be dead crossed Sho's mind.

"Bullets can't kill you… so wake up now Kei", Sho tried to shake him out of it.

"Wake up!", he yelled, but Kei was still unresponsive. Tears dripped from Sho's eyes and unto Kei's grayish pale cheeks. Suddenly he heard movement from left, and quickly took his gun from the floor and pointed it at whoever was there. Sho had almost forgotten about Toshi's presence. He was trying to move closer, despite his legs and arms being tied. Sho quickly took his jacket off, placed Kei on top of it as gently as possible, and went over to help Toshi out. With a small pocket knife he cut the ties, releasing Toshi from the gag.  
Without saying anything, Toshi ran over to Kei and held his ear to Kei's mouth.

"He's not breathing", Toshi said and looked up at Sho with a serious expression, "Even for a vampire I don't think that's a good thing".

"Should we take him to the hospital?", Sho cried and knitted his brows in worry.

"Sho you know we can't do that", Toshi said with regret in his voice, "Even if they don't ask questions about the bullet holes, Kei might not react to the treatment the way a human would – we can't risk it".

Sho wiped a couple of tears away and said: "Then let's at least take him home".

The drive home felt impossibly long, and Sho thought the car was shaking more than usual. All the time he held on to Kei's lifeless form so that he wouldn't roll over. Sho could feel his trousers getting soaked in warm blood, but he didn't loosen his grip on Kei.

They parked as close to Kei and Sho's apartment as possible. Toshi went over to Sho's side of the car, and opened the door.

"Let me take him, you're injured", Toshi said and began to lift Kei.

"No I want to do it!", Sho said so loudly that it startled Toshi.

Toshi nodded and gave Sho space to get out. Sho tried his best to make it as comfortable as possible for Kei, when he lifted him up. He moved one arm to the curve of his legs, and with the other, was careful to support his back and neck. Sho could feel the wound in his shoulder reopen, but he ignored the pain.

Back at the apartment, Toshi peeled Kei's shirt off and examined his torso. Sho didn't want to look and went over to the window.

"No exit wounds…", he heard Toshi whisper, "the bullets are most likely still in there".

"What should we do?", Sho asked and was finally able to look over at Kei again, since Toshi had covered him with a towel.  
"There's probably not much to do other than to wait and see".

Sho opened his mouth, about to yell, but Toshi stopped him: "Sho… You have to remember who Kei is, _what Kei is_, I'm sure he'll be okay". But Sho could see in Toshi's face that even he didn't believe it. Kei had never been hurt this badly while Sho had known him. Sho had thought that the only way Kei could die, was if he walked into the sun, but now he wasn't so sure. Kei looked very dead.

Toshi sighed and rose from the chair.

"I need to get home", he said.

"No stop!", Sho yelled.  
Toshi looked back at Sho with a puzzled expression.

"Can't you... won't you stay tonight", said Sho, "I don't want to be alone if… when he wakes up".

Toshi looked at Sho for a while and smiled softy.

"I'll stay".

Sho almost smiled back, "Good… good, you can take my room".

"Will you look over him tonight?"

Sho felt his cheeks growing warm, "I owe it to him", he said, "And I'll just sleep on the couch!"

"Sure, sure", Toshi said and went off to Sho's room.

When Sho wasn't able to hear Toshi anymore, he picked Kei up and went to Kei's room. He laid him on top of the bed, and sat next to his still body. Drops of blood were running down Sho's arm, and he suddenly got an idea. He moved his bleeding shoulder to Kei's mouth, and let a couple of drops fall onto his lips. Sho wasn't able to see if the drops were getting into his mouth, before he felt movement underneath him. Goosebumps appeared everywhere on Sho's body, when he felt Kei's soft tongue on his broken skin. It didn't hurt so bad at first, but suddenly Kei gripped onto the back of Sho's head and starting to suck more and more violently at the wound.

But even then Sho couldn't help but feel relieved. Kei wasn't dead.

"_Ah…_"

Between the slurping sounds that Kei was making, he moaned quietly. At first they were only sounds, but after a while, he began to call Sho's name.

"_Sho… more…"_

Sho felt Kei's other hand snake its way up his back. Despite all of Sho's instincts telling him to get away, he tried not to flinch. He was starting to feel dizzy, and it became harder for him to lean over Kei the way he did. His arms shook and he lost balance.

"Sho!", Kei yelled. Kei's eyes were clear and open. He had regained consciousness.

"Sho, what have you done!?", he said.

"I just wanted to help you…", Sho mumbled. He was feeling very light-headed.

"I never wanted to experience that taste!", Kei yelled and spat on the bed.

Kei felt horrible. He had taken blood form Sho, and when he saw Sho's ashen face he wanted to cry. But the thing he felt the worst about was maybe that he knew, that what he had just said had been a lie. The moment Sho's blood had hit his lips, he had felt nothing but bliss. All the pain had disappeared. It was the sweetest most delicious taste he had ever experienced and even now he hungered for more. A drop of blood ran along the inside of Sho's arm, and Kei almost couldn't control his twitching hands.

"Sho I want you to leave", Kei hissed.

"Everything went fine so what are you even-", but before Sho could finish his sentence, he saw Kei's eyes roll back in his head.

"Sho I'm…", Kei said in a feeble voice, before he sat up and started to throw up the blood he had just drunk.

Sho didn't understand, Kei had seemed to have come back to normal, but now he was deteriorating again, turning paler by second in front of his eyes.

"Why isn't it healing like it always does!?"  
"The bullets…", Kei coughed, "the bullets are still…", but he didn't manage to say anymore. He fell over on the bed, his eyes were unfocused, and blood was leaving his body from his nose and ears.

Sho knew there was nothing left to do. He removed the sticky towel from Kei's body, and was met by three large entrance holes. Sho's stomach turned at the sight, each hole was deep and pieces of bone could be seen in the exposed flesh. Sho realized that the wounds were serious, and that he had to hurry. At this rate Kei would be completely dry of blood within minutes, and Sho was sure that even he wouldn't be able to survive that. Sho looked around for a pointy object, but wasn't able to find anything suitable. He went back to Kei, took a deep breath and stuck two of his fingers into the largest hole. Kei screamed out in pain, but Sho held him down with his knees.

"What are you doing!", Toshi had appeared in the door in his boxers and hurried into the room.

"I have to get the bullets out!", Sho said through gritted teeth and continued to move his fingers around inside Kei. He felt more and more desperate as he couldn't find anything.

"It might have traveled", said Toshi.

"I've got one!", Sho held up a small crooked bullet. He didn't waste time, and dug into the next wound. When he quickly found the two last bullets he let out a relived laugh.

"Thank god they are all in one piece", Toshi said and held his hand to his heart.

They sat in silence and looked. Nothing seemed to happen, but suddenly the healing process kicked in, and the wounds started to get smaller, until they were almost completely gone, leaving behind only a couple of small red bruises.

"… Amazing", Toshi couldn't help but utter, before he nodded at Sho and went back to bed.

Kei still hadn't woken up, but Sho was sure that everything would be fine now. Sho laid his cheek on Kei's chest, he was so warm. He closed his eyes and placed a feather-light kiss on each of the red bruises.

He rose from the bed, and was about to leave the room, when he looked back over at Kei. Sho felt his heart sting at the sight of the vampire, lying there completely soaked in his own blood, and went back to the bed. He laid down with his face towards Kei and gently pulled him closer, his already stained clothes getting wet with blood again.

It didn't matter. It didn't matter that they hadn't manage to get the money either. Right now all that mattered was the slow but steady breathing, Sho could feel against his throat.


End file.
